hello folks,
i'm wondering about the way that pci-e works.
in specific, i want to see what would be the deal if i put a pci-e 1X wi-fi card into a 4X slot 8X slot or 16X slot. if i had a graphics card in one of the 16X slots and a 1X card in the other 16X slot, would it hinder the performance of the graphics card?

The X number refers to the available pci-e lanes and thus available bandwidth for that specific slot. Keep in mind that there is a difference between a physical 16x slot and an electrical 16x slot. To answer your wifi and gpu question, no there will not be any performance hindrance. You can put a x1 card into either a 4,8,or 16x slot, but not the other way around (although people have hacked around to do so).